Indescribable
by Cielita
Summary: Ben and his parents cannot seem to find a word to describe the feeling associated with becoming a parent. ONE SHOT! Set between "The Greatest Treasure of All" and "A Treasured Legacy".


**Indescribable **

"_Oh, honey, you're almost there! Push, Em!" _

"_What does it look like I'm doing! Oooohh!" _

"_Em?" _

"_Oh, God, Patrick! I can't do it anymore!" _

"_I'm here, Emily. I'm here, honey, I've got you." _

_His voice and his actions seem to have soothed her momentary fear and seconds later a strangled cry echoes into the air. _

"_You did it! Oh, Em, you did it, honey!" _

"_Ohh…oh my…Patrick!" _

_There is a silence for a few seconds and then very small baby sounds enter into the conversation. _

"_A son…Em, we have a son…" _

"_He's beautiful! Oh, Patrick…" _

_What sounds like a series of soft kisses can be heard and then there is a rustle as the newborn changes hands. _

"_Benjamin…Benjamin Franklin Gates." _

"Ben?" Abigail said, tiptoeing into the den. Her husband had closed himself in this room for the past several hours of this breezy, warm, last day of March, claiming he had work to do. Abigail hadn't argued with him, knowing that for some reason a nervous agitation had pervaded her husband's mood for days. But several hours after he initially shut the door, Abigail brought a cup of coffee and a cookie with her and gingerly knocked on the door of the den. She wasn't sure that Ben's mood had passed, but she desperately wanted to know what was bothering him and she felt she had waited long enough. Now she had listened quietly at the door to the recording he was listening to and a smile curled at her lips as the twins kicked inside her. Her due date was less than a week away, and she was supposed to be off her feet, but innate curiosity won over reason, and here she stood at the door, awaiting his answer.

"Come in," Ben finally said, his voice sounding bleary and weakened with emotion. Without a word, she set his snack on the desk and rested her left arm across his shoulders. Ben slipped his right arm around Abigail at her waist and gently embraced her.

"Is everything all right?" Abigail finally asked, pretending she wasn't curious about the old fashioned tape recorder on the desk and the recording she had heard.

"Mom found this when she and dad cleaned the attic the other day," Ben said. "She thought I might like to listen to it."

"Your birth?" she asked with a smile.

"You were listening at the door. I could see your feet," Ben said with a teasing smile. "Aren't you supposed to be off your feet?"

"Not when something's wrong with my husband and he won't tell me what it is," Abigail said.

"There's nothing really wrong, per say," Ben said. "I'm just a little nervous about all of this. I mean, I've never been responsible for something so small but at the same time so big in my life. I mean, these aren't just any kids—these are our kids. Ours. As in, we conceived them. That's my DNA in there *and* yours." Once he opened his mouth, poor Ben couldn't seem to stop.

"Have you talked to your father? Maybe he could help you work through some of this," Abigail said, perching on Ben's lap when he turned to face her. Ben rested his large hand on Abigail's swollen belly and bent to kiss it.

"I'll give him a call later on," Ben said.

"Why put it off?" Abigail said, running her hand through Ben's hair.

"Because the mother of my children should be resting, and I could use a nap myself," Ben said, reaching to kiss her.

"Oh, really?" Abigail teased, making Ben smile again.

"We might as well take advantage of all the sleep we're getting, because from the sounds of it, we're not going to get much for the next few years," Ben said. Abigail was laughing again, this time wrapping her arm around her middle.

"Are you all right?" Ben asked. Abigail nodded, taking a breath and then replying, "I'm fine…they kicked pretty hard there for a second. They know your voice, you know."

"I hope so," Ben said, stroking Abigail's belly lovingly. "They're going to be hearing it a lot." Abigail's smile only grew wider.

"That's good to know," she said, leaning to kiss him again. Abigail drew a sharp breath a second later and sat back, to Ben's shock.

"What's wrong?" Ben demanded.

"I thought one of them had kicked me again for a second there but the pain is different…it's not going away…Ben…" Abigail replied, her anxiety escalating as she spoke.

"You come down to the door with me and I'll go get the car," Ben said, guiding Abigail down the hall. He had rehearsed this in his head a million times over the past months, but now that it was happening, his heart was suddenly thudding with fear. When he returned with the car, it seemed like only a heartbeat before they arrived at the hospital and Abigail was whisked away to prepare to give birth. Ben was told he'd be allowed to join her as soon as all the preparations were made and reluctantly, he made his way to the waiting area. He was there only a fraction of a second before he was dialing his phone.

"Dad!" Ben cried.

"What is it, son?" Patrick said, suddenly setting down the coffee mug in his hand. Emily looked up from the newspaper when Patrick's expression changed from fear and he was suddenly ecstatic. "We're on our way, Ben!" When he hung up the phone, Emily was already out of her chair and turning the lights off while she grabbed her coat and purse.

"Is Abigail all right?" Emily asked.

"She's in labor and from the sounds of it, everything's going according to plan," Patrick said. He opened the front door but then pulled Emily back before she could charge out the door ahead of him. He drew her against him and kissed her, putting into that kiss all of the excitement he was feeling. Reeling a bit, Emily looked up at him as amused as she was confused.

"What was that for?" she asked with a pleased smile.

"We're becoming grandparents today," he said with wonder. "It seemed like the thing to do at the time!"

***

When Patrick and Emily arrived in the maternity ward, Riley and Jacqui had arrived just before them and rose to greet them when they came into the waiting room.

"Ben just went in. She must have been ignoring most of the preliminary contractions because according to the doctor, she almost didn't make it here," Jacqui reported. Patrick and Emily shared a look and then Emily blew out a breath as Patrick chuckled.

"Sound familiar?" he teased.

"Stop that," Emily grumbled.

"What?" Riley asked, a smile developing on his face. He could tell there was a story coming that he didn't want to miss.

"What else are we going to do to pass the time?" Patrick said.

"Anything but that one," Emily said, lowering her head to her left hand and making Riley and Jacqui stifle giggles.

"Picture it—the year was 1964," Patrick began, "the seventh of January as a matter of fact. A historically massive snowstorm had dropped a foot of snow on the city the day—and night!—before, and I was worried that the baby might come early."

"There was no reason for me to suspect that Ben would choose that exact moment to—"

"So," Patrick continued, cutting off his wife's argument and proceeding right over the top of her, "When Emily told me it was time, I had to bundle up and stomp through 13 inches of heavy, wet snow to get to the car, clean off the car, shovel enough of the driveway to get the car out of the driveway."

"Oh, enough about the bloody car!" Emily grumbled. "How we ever got by with that contraption for as long as we drove it, I'll never know."

"That was a perfectly reasonable vehicle," Patrick retorted, defending what Riley could only imagine was a car that Patrick must have enjoyed driving.

"Reasonable? They might have used one just like it to storm the beaches of Normandy!" Emily embellished. Patrick gave up reasoning with her and turned back to Riley and Jacqui.

"You're exaggerating," Patrick said without raising his voice. "So, I got the car out and managed to get Emily to the car and then got stuck at the bottom of the driveway."

"Bloody stupid snowplow," Emily groaned.

"Left a rift at the end of the driveway up to my bumpers!" Patrick said spitefully.

"So what else was he to do? He gets out of the car and back up to the garage to get the shovel and dig a path for the car," Emily added. "By now I'm in a state of sheer panic. This baby is coming regardless of the weather or the inefficiency of whatever department deploys the snowplows."

"By the time I dug enough of the snow out to get the car out, we had to take it so slow because of the snow still coming down—" Patrick picked up where Emily stopped only to have her interrupt him again.

"It didn't exactly help that the emergency routes were only then being plowed so we had to follow the ruddy snowplow at what was probably five miles an hour," Emily said, folding her arms over her chest.

"Fifteen," Patrick corrected her. Riley and Jacqui couldn't hold back anymore, they were starting to laugh. "Oh, it was very frightening."

"I begged you to get a different car before the baby was due but you insisted that that rattle-trap would do for us," Emily fired back.

"That rattle-trap was a 1959 Rambler American and it was as steady then as it was the day I drove it off the showroom floor, Emily," Patrick said. His wounded male pride wasn't going to let her win this one.

"By the time we got to the hospital, my water had broken," Emily said, "and poor Benjamin came within ten minutes of being born in the front seat of that wonderfully reliable automobile." Emily's sarcasm could have dripped from the words she spoke. A second worth of silence came between them as Patrick and Emily's eyes met and for the first time during the story, both smiled.

"They weren't going to let me come into the room with her," Patrick said, his smile fond and his voice affectionate, "but like you already know…it's tough to talk Em out of something once she's got her mind set to do it." Emily chuckled as she remembered.

"The nurses weren't too fond of me, that's for sure," she laughed. Patrick slipped his right arm around Emily's shoulders and pulled her to him, grinning as she spontaneously put her head on his shoulder in response.

"Ben was born at 6:34pm on the snowiest day of the year," Patrick explained, emotion evident in his voice. "Six pounds and five ounces of our perfect baby boy." Emily's eyes were shiny with tears when she looked at Patrick and added, "I'll never forget the look on your face when you first held him. He'd been fussing for me, but when you took him he just stopped and looked up at you like…" She couldn't seem to find the words to finish the sentence, but the sentiment seemed to be understood as the two glanced across to Riley and Jacqui, who were still grinning and paying rapt attention. Jacqui brushed a tear from her eyes and continued to grin. Patrick tenderly kissed Emily's forehead and the four sat in silence until the door suddenly opened and Ben took two or three weary steps into the room, an expression on his face that his proud parents knew only too well. He looked at them with tears in his blue eyes and then smiled.

"Well?" Riley asked.

"A boy and a girl," Ben said, his voice losing strength as he spoke. Emily turned to smile excitedly at Patrick and then turned back to face Ben. "Charlotte Perkins and William Clark Gates."

"Would you like to meet your grandchildren?" Ben said, extending his hand to his mother. She willingly took it, and stood, preceding him out into the hallway. Ben good-naturedly swatted his dad's hand away when he tried to pat Ben's cheek as he walked by and Riley and Jacqui finally stood up to follow them. Riley's expression was somewhat perplexed as he followed Jacqui out of the waiting room.

"What's wrong, honey?" Jacqui said, her wedding ring still brilliant and new on her left hand.

"They had to call her 'Charlotte'," Riley whined.

END


End file.
